In an investigative report, The New York Times demonstrated that Elon Musk failed to deliver on his claim that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Not only did he fall short, but his efforts were so reckless that they might cost money instead of saving it.
Having launched his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (which is not a department at all and was never authorized by Congress), Musk and his then-partner Vivek Ramaswamy promised to cut $2 trillion. Their goal dropped to $1 trillion, and Vivek left the team to run for Governor in Ohio.
Some of DOGE’s claims turned out be be inflated (one alleged saving of $8 billion turned out to be a saving of only $8 million.
Musk eventually reduced his saving claim to only $150 billion.
Since DOGE began, thousands of federal employees have been fired. Some have been rehired after courts decided their firing was illegal. Some have been fired, rehired, and fired again. Some career employees have taken buyout offers. Tens of thousands of federal employees have been laid off, without regard to their experience. There was no time for DOGE workers to evaluate each person they ousted, nor did DOGE have the competence to judge its victims.
The New York Times concluded that DOGE’s activities may actually save nothing at all. Firing workers is expensive when you do it the wrong way, the DOGE way.
President Trump and Elon Musk promised taxpayers big savings, maybe even a “DOGE dividend” check in their mailboxes, when the Department of Government Efficiency was let loose on the federal government. Now, as he prepares to step back from his presidential assignment to cut bureaucratic fat, Mr. Musk has said without providing details that DOGE is likely to save taxpayers only $150 billion.
That is about 15 percent of the $1 trillion he pledged to save, less than 8 percent of the $2 trillion in savings he had originally promised and a fraction of the nearly $7 trillion the federal government spent in the 2024 fiscal year.
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. The total number of departures is expected to be as many as 32,000.
Neither of these estimates includes the cost to taxpayers of defending DOGE’s moves in court. Of about 200 lawsuits and appeals related to Mr. Trump’s agenda, at least 30 implicate the department.
“Not only is Musk vastly overinflating the money he has saved, he is not accounting for the exponentially larger waste that he is creating,” said Max Stier, the chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service. “He’s inflicted these costs on the American people, who will pay them for many years to come.”
Mr. Stier and other experts on the federal work force said it did not have to be this way. Federal law and previous government shutdowns offered Mr. Musk a legal playbook for reducing the federal work force, a goal that most Americans support. But Mr. Musk chose similar lightning-speed, blunt-force methods he used to drastically cut Twitter’s work force after he acquired the company in 2022.
“The law is clear,” said Jeri Buchholz, who over three decades in public service handled hiring and firing at seven federal agencies, including NASA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. “They can do all the things they are currently doing, but they can’t do them the way they’re doing them. They can either start over and do it right, or they can be in court for forever.”
As California emerges from a divisive national election, it is crucial to remain clear-eyed about the risks ahead while pursuing bold strategies to address them. There are many domains in which state and local leaders can still work to improve the lives of Californians, and education offers one of the clearest examples. Historically, education policy has been shaped at the state and local levels, and California has the tools to lead the nation by championing sensible, evidence-based policies that create better outcomes for children and families.
That work has never been more important. California’s education system faces four pressing challenges in the wake of COVID-19. Student achievement continues to lag behind other states, with performance gaps remaining unacceptably wide. Chronic absenteeism is also hindering recovery efforts, as many children and families remain disengaged from schools. Additionally, schools are falling short in equipping students with the skills needed for career readiness, real-world success, and active participation in a complex democracy. Meanwhile, brutal culture wars are consuming vital attention and resources from addressing these critical issues. Tackling these challenges head-on and developing targeted solutions is essential for driving meaningful progress.
Any improvement strategy must start with every teacher having high quality, comprehensive instructional materials and the training to use them effectively. One clear model for this kind of reform is the “science of reading” movement, which has been adopted by many states but not yet embraced by California.
One need not agree with every element of the science of reading to recognize that Mississippi’s suite of reforms pushed the state from nearly last in national rankings to above the national average. Their approach offers a model of a state that had a clear instructional point of view, supported that vision with a well-crafted policy, and saw impressive outcomes as a result. California would do well to embrace the idea that state policy can meaningfully shape teaching and learning when implemented with purpose and precision.
However, students cannot learn if they are not at school in the first place. Chronic absenteeism in California more than doubled after the pandemic, rising from 10% to 24% in the 2022-23 school year, affecting over 1.4 million students. It’s a pervasive issue that cuts across all types of schools and students. While the causes of this crisis are not fully understood, several ideas merit policy responses.
Access to school-based mental health services remains inadequate and disproportionately limited for students of color and those from low-income families. Districts must collaborate across systems to expand these services and ensure they reach those most in need. Additionally, the school violence and bullying epidemic causes parents to question whether sending a child to school is safe. Therefore, efforts should be made to eradicate violence and bullying on school campuses.
The goal is not to simply get students to school, but to ensure that their determination to stay translates to strong job opportunities and overall well-being — whether they enroll in college or go directly into the workforce. For districts, paving the way begins well before high school.
Encouraging progress is being made in the region to expand student access to high-wage, high-interest careers. Public-private partnerships can help districts better equip students with well-paying jobs by developing career pathways in fields like technology and healthcare, progressing from foundational skills to advanced competencies. District administrators can join forces with local colleges to build cross-sector strategies to better prepare students for college success. These efforts should include paid internships in high-demand professions, such as health care, allied health professions, high technology, or green technology. Notably, several organizations (UniteLA,Growing Inland Achievement) and others are already driving this important work in Southern California, providing a model for other regions to follow.
To gain traction on these meaningful issues, advocates, parents, and policymakers must lower the temperature around divisive “culture war” issues that are currently sucking up too much of the air in the room. Where there are areas of sharp moral disagreement, we must demand civil discussion and respect differing viewpoints. California’s public schools must remain spaces where all parents feel comfortable sending their children. While debates about the goals of education are inevitable — and even vital to a healthy democratic process — allowing school boards and education leaders to be overtaken by partisan, nationalized politics only hinders progress. By focusing efforts on the pressing challenges, we all recognize we can move forward and create solutions to improve our children’s lives.
We don’t yet know what the national election portends for California’s schools, and some federal actions could escalate with serious potential consequences for the state’s students and families. In times of uncertainty, it is prudent to focus on local education improvements rooted in strong evidence. By prioritizing proven strategies that advance long-term goals, California can continue to strengthen student learning across the region’s schools and colleges, regardless of broader political shifts.
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Patricia Burch is a professor of education at USC Rossier School of Education and faculty co-director of the USC Education Policy Hub.
Morgan Polikoff is a professor of education at USC Rossier School of Education and faculty co-director of the USC EdPolicy Hub.
Jon Fullerton is a research professor and executive director of the USC EdPolicy Hub.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Clarity matters when explaining to parents how their children did on standardized tests. An imprecise characterization of a complicated score can mislead parents into assuming their kids performed better than they did.
That issue is at the heart of the opposition to draft revisions to descriptions of students’ scores on the Smarter Balanced assessments that are sent home to parents. While the degree of difficulty of the tests and their scoring wouldn’t change, the characterization of the results would, like replacing the term “standard not met” with “inconsistent” for the lowest scores.
Parent focus groups this week
The California Department of Education is scheduling three online focus groups to gather thoughts, questions and concerns on proposed changes to how scores on the Smarter Balanced statewide assessments will be reported publicly. The meetings are for parents, teachers and students.
Tuesday, Dec. 3, 6 to 7 p,m.: Session 1, in English
Wednesday, Dec. 4, 7 to 8 p.m. Session 2, in English for students only
Thursday, Dec. 5, 6 to 7 p.m. Session 3, in Spanish
The State Board of Education delayed its adoption at its November meeting because of criticism that the revised wording may compound, not solve, current unclear language.
Board members listened to children’s advocacy groups who chided state officials for not first consulting with teachers and parents before taking any action — which state officials acknowledged they hadn’t done.
In a letter to the state board about the proposed changes, particularly the labeling of low test scores, nine student advocacy groups — the Alliance for Students — argued that the revised language “will only serve to obfuscate the data and make it even more challenging for families and advocates to lift the needs of our most underserved students.” Signers of the letter include Teach Plus, Children Now, and Innovate Public Schools.
Getting the terms right is important for the assessment scores to be useful to parents and teachers, Sarah Lillis, executive director of Teach Plus California, told EdSource. “We want to make sure the signals sent by the descriptors foster dialogue” and encourage parents to ask the right questions.
“We echo the concerns of our colleagues,” testified Lindsay Tornatore, representing the California County Superintendents at the board’s Nov. 13 meeting. “Outreach to parents, families and the community should have been prioritized to engage in multiple opportunities prior to the changes being made.”
In response, the California Department of Education hastily scheduled online presentations this week for parents and teachers, with the expectation that they will consider any recommendations at their next meeting in January.
How scores are reported
A student’s scores on the Smarter Balanced tests in English language arts and math and on the California Science Test fall within one of four achievement levels that provide context on how the student performed. Level 4, with the highest attainable scores, is also labeled “Standard Exceeded.” Level 3 is labeled Standard Met; Level 2 is Standard Nearly Met, and Level 1 is Standard Not Met. Many of the dozen states and territories that give Smarter Balanced use the same definitions.
The target is to score at least Level 3, which indicates a student is working at grade level. In the 2023-24 results, fewer than half of students achieved Levels 3 or 4: 53% scored at levels 1 or 2 in English language arts, and 64.5% scored at Levels 1 or 2 in math. The tests are given to students in grades three through eight and grade 11.
Statewide scores were worse in science, which is given to students in grades five, eight, and once in high school, 69.3% failed to meet Level 3 — the grade-level standard — in 2023-24.
In response to criticism that the existing labels are vague, imprecise and confusing, Smarter Balanced representatives decided to create a new set of labels and brief descriptions, which states have the option to use. This is particularly so for Level 2 — the “Standard Nearly Met” label. Many parents don’t understand what nearly meeting grade-level standards in particular means.
Under the Smarter Balanced draft for the scoring bands, Level 4 would become “Advanced,” Level 3 would be “Proficient,” Level 2 would be “Foundational,” and Level 1 would be “Inconsistent.”
A draft description for Level 2 in language arts for third to fifth grade would read, “The student demonstrates foundational grade-level skills and shows a basic understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills in English language arts/literacy needed for likely success in future coursework.”
In letters and in remarks at the board meeting, critics indicated they’re fine with “Advanced” and “Proficient” but are unhappy with the labels Foundational and Inconsistent for Levels 1 and 2.
“The language is confusing and not engaging for families with the first two levels,” said Joanna French, director of research and policy strategies for Innovate Public Schools. “If a student is not at grade level, be direct about that. You cannot address a problem you cannot see.”
Tonya Craft-Perry, a 15-year teacher who is active in the Black Parent Network of Innovate Public Schools, said that “’Foundational’ could lead parents to believe their children are doing better than they are. It makes the district and teachers look better, but if a low score requires intervention, a parent needs to know that,” she said.
Several board members indicated that one easy remedy would be to include language in the revision’s current descriptions. The wording makes clear that a student scoring in Level 2 “may require further development” to demonstrate the knowledge and skills to succeed in future grades or, for older students, in college courses after high school. Students scoring in Level 1 “needs substantial improvement” to succeed.
News media oversimplifies
In a two-page explanation, Smarter Balanced blamed the news media for much of the misunderstanding over the current wording of the labels.
“The media often incorrectly reports that students who aren’t proficient ‘can’t do math’ or ‘can’t read.’ This is not true. The Smarter Balanced assessments are aligned to grade-level content, and students who achieve Levels 2, 3, and 4 do, in fact, demonstrate a continuum of grade-level knowledge and skills,” it said.
Students at all three of those levels are showing that they “understand core content,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the California State Board of Education, at the board meeting.
But as scores progress from one level to the next, students convey increasing accuracy and complexity in their knowledge and skills. Smarter Balanced said students demonstrate this in how they respond to more complex reading passages, concepts and advanced vocabulary, or in math, the number of elements in equations and difficult word problems.
Rob Manwaring, a senior adviser to the advocacy group Children Now, said that the new labels would feed the “reality gap in the perceptions of parents that their kids are doing better than they are” in school. In an often-cited 2023 parent survey in communities nationwide, survey firm Gallup and the nonprofit parent advocacy organization Learning Heroes found that, based on their kids’ report cards, parents’ perceptions were out of whack with how their children did on assessments. In Sacramento County, where 28% of students were proficient in math tests, 85% of parents believed their children were proficient.
“Now we are suggesting that students scoring below standard are foundational. Many parents will conclude, ‘My kid is doing fine,’” Manwaring said.
Social worker Mary Schmauss, right, greets students as they arrive for school in October Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico.
Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home.
When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class.
He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him.
“I didn’t have everything,” said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Tommy attends school on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Arizona. “You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car.”
A teacher and a truancy officer also reached out to Tommy’s family to address his attendance. He was one of many. Across the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.
Years after Covid-19 disrupted American schools, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance. But attendance has been worse for Native American and Alaska Native students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press.
Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.
Many schools serving Native American students have been working to strengthen connections with families who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools.
History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.
With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn that around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured are Kanette Yatsattie , 8 , left, and his classmate Jeremy Candelaria, 10, hanging out by a board depicting the race for best attendance at the school on Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024.Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
On-site health, trauma care helped bring students back
The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is guided by cultural success coaches — school employees who help families address the kind of challenges that keep students from coming to school.
Nearly 100% of students in the district are Native, and more than half of families have incomes below the federal poverty level. Many students come from homes that deal with alcoholism and drug abuse, Superintendent Deborah Dennison said.
Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, a cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said.
“You feel better, you do better,” Jones said. “That’s our job here in the care center is to help the students feel better.”
Jason Jones, cultural success coach and care center manager, talks about the care center at San Carlos High School on Aug. 27 in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)Credit: Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
The Rice Primary School Care Center in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
In the 2023-2024 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate in the district fell from 76% to 59% — an improvement Dennison attributes partly to efforts to address their communities’ needs.
“All these connections with the community and the tribe are what’s making a difference for us and making the school a system that fits them rather than something that has been forced upon them, like it has been for over a century of education in Indian Country,” said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation.
In three states — Alaska, Nebraska, and South Dakota — the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, it has continued to worsen, even while improving slightly for other students, as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism for Native students rose from 22% in 2018-19 to 45% in 2022-23.
AP’s analysis does not include data on schools managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools.
Schools close on days of Native ceremonial gatherings
At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent.
The communities were hit hard by Covid-19, with devastating impacts on elders. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Excused absences for sick days are still piling up — in some cases, Principal Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed about falling behind academically.
Staff and tribal liaisons have been analyzing every absence and emphasizing connections with parents. By 10 a.m., telephone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with those students’ parents.
“There’s illness, there’s trauma,” Montoya said. “A lot of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so that the parents can be working.”
About 95% of Algodones’ students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It doesn’t open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos.
Second grade teacher Lori Spina taking a photo of her class for her newsletter in October at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
Principal Rosangela Montoya waves goodbye to parents as students arrive at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New .Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured is a third grade class in October.Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family’s native language of Keres. She speaks Keres at home, but says that’s not always enough to instill fluency.
Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when they were in the federal Head Start educational program — a system that now promotes native language preservation — and they struggled academically.
“It was sad to see with my own eyes,” said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school’s food bank. “In Algodones, I saw a big difference to where the teachers were really there for the students, and for all the kids, to help them learn.”
Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son, Cameron Tenorio, said he likes math and wants to be a policeman.
“He’s inspired,” Tenorio said. “He tells me every day what he learns.”
Home visits change perception of school
Velma Kitcheyan, a third grade teacher at Rice Intermediate School, instructs her students in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro walks to a classroom at Rice Intermediate School in San Carlos, Arizona.Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom’s, has helped improve attendance. Since many parents are without working phones, he said, that often means home visits.
Lillian Curtis said she was impressed by Rice Intermediate’s student activities on family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school by mid-October last year but had missed just two days by the same time this year.
“The kids always want to go — they are anxious to go to school now. And Brylee is much more excited,” said Curtis, who takes care of her grandchildren.
Curtis said she tells Brylee that skipping school is not an option.
“I just told her that you need to be in school, because who is going to be supporting you?” Curtis said. “You’ve got to do it on your own. You got to make something of yourself.”
The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of school and what it can offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. Its efforts have helped not just with attendance but also morale, especially at the high school, she said.
“Education was a weapon for the U.S. government back in the past,” she said. “We work to decolonize our school system.”
Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lurye reported from New Orleans. Alia Wong of The Associated Press and Felix Clary of ICT contributed to this report.
Trump has used his presidency to attack universities, schools, media organizations, corporations, foreign students, and everyone else he sees as his enemy. He has used Elon Musk to close down agencies–like USAID–and Departments–like Education. He has taken personal control of the Kennedy Center and intends to remove exhibits he doesn’t like from the Smithsonian. He has directed the Department of Justice to investigate his critics and enemies. He has blighted whatever he chose. The list of his attacks on democracy is long.
Nationwide, Native students miss school far more frequently than their peers, but not at Watonga High School shown on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma.
Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo
As the Watonga school system’s Indian education director, Hollie Youngbear works to help Native American students succeed in the Oklahoma district — a job that begins with getting them to school.
She makes sure students have clothes and school supplies. She connects them with federal and tribal resources. And when students don’t show up to school, she and a colleague drive out and pick them up.
Nationwide, Native students miss school far more frequently than their peers, but not at Watonga High School. Youngbear and her colleagues work to connect with families in a way that acknowledges the history and needs of Native communities.
As she thumbed through binders in her office with records of every Native student in the school, Youngbear said a cycle of skipping school goes back to the abuse generations of Native students suffered at U.S. government boarding schools.
Indian education director Hollie Youngbear poses for a portrait at Watonga High School on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma. Youngbear and her colleagues work to connect with families in a way that acknowledges the history and needs of Native communities. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo
“If grandma didn’t go to school, and her grandma didn’t, and her mother didn’t, it can create a generational cycle,” said Youngbear, a member of the Arapaho tribe who taught the Cheyenne and Arapaho languages at the school for 25 years.
Watonga schools collaborate with several Cheyenne and Arapaho programs that aim to lower Native student absenteeism. One helps students with school expenses and promotes conferences for tribal youth. Another holds monthly meetings with Watonga’s Native high school students during lunch hours to discourage underage drinking and drug use.
Oklahoma is home to 38 federally recognized tribes, many with their own education departments — and support from those tribes contributes to students’ success. Of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, Oklahoma was the only one where Native students missed school at lower rates than the state average, according to data collected by The Associated Press.
At Watonga High, fewer than 4% of Native students were chronically absent in 2022-23, in line with the school average, according to state data. Chronically absent students miss 10% or more of the school year, for both excused and unexcused reasons, which sets them behind in learning and heightens their chances of dropping out.
About 14% of students at the Watonga school on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation are Native American. With black-lettered Bible verses on the walls of its hallways, the high school resembles many others in rural Oklahoma. But student-made Native art decorates the classroom reserved for Eagle Academy, the school’s alternative education program.
Students are assigned to the program when they struggle to keep up their grades or attendance, and most are Native American, classroom teacher Carrie Compton said. Students are rewarded for attendance with incentives like field trips.
Compton said she gets results. A Native boy who was absent 38 days one semester spent a short time in Eagle Academy during his second year of high school and went on to graduate last year, she said.
Alternative education director Carrie Compton poses for a portrait in her classroom at Watonga High School on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma. When students do not show up for school, Compton and Indian education director Hollie Youngbear take turns visiting their homes. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo
“He had perfect attendance for the first time ever, and it’s because he felt like he was getting something from school,” Compton said.
When students do not show up for school, Compton and Youngbear take turns visiting their homes.
“I can remember one year, I probably picked five kids up every morning because they didn’t have rides,” Compton said. “So at 7 o’clock in the morning, I just start my little route, and make my circle, and once they get into the habit of it, they would come to school.”
Around the country, Native students often have been enrolled in disproportionately large numbers in alternative education programs, which can worsen segregation. But the embrace of Native students by their Eagle Academy teacher sets a different tone from what some students experience elsewhere in the school.
Compton said a complaint she hears frequently from Native students in her room is, “The teachers just don’t like me.”
Bullying of Native students by non-Native students is also a problem, said Watonga senior Happy Belle Shortman, who is Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho. She said Cheyenne students have been teased over aspects of their traditional ceremonies and powwow music.
Senior Happy Belle Shortman, who is who is Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho, poses for a portrait at Watonga High School on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo
“People here, they’re not very open, and they do have their opinions,” Shortman said. “People who are from a different culture, they don’t understand our culture and everything that we have to do, or that we have a different living than they do.”
Poverty might play a role in bullying as well, she said. “If you’re not in the latest trends, then you’re kind of just outcasted,” she said.
Watonga staff credit the work building relationships with students for the low absenteeism rates, despite the challenges.
“Native students are never going to feel really welcomed unless the non-Native faculty go out of their way to make sure that those Native students feel welcomed,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.
Associated Press writer Sharon Lurye in New Orleans contributed to this report.
The new bill will offer state-approved training and textbooks to all TK-5th-grade teachers.
State-sanctioned training will be voluntary, part of the compromise.
A shift toward in evidence-based strategies, including phonics, moves away from local control.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has nudged parties at odds on how early literacy should be taught to agree to legislation that could significantly advance reading proficiency in California.
After weeks of intense talks following months of stalled negotiations, a new bill that Rivas, D-Salinas, will co-author will have a hearing April 30, the deadline for an initial committee vote on new bills. Assembly Bill 1454 will call for providing potentially all transitional kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers with training and textbooks that stress what’s known as structured literacy, starting with phonics in the early grades. (The bill, which will be co-authored by Rivas, Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, and Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, had not yet been published as of Wednesday; it will soon replace the current AB 1854, an unrelated bill.)
The bill won’t end the resistance of critics who argue that structured literacy, with an emphasis on foundational skills, is too narrow and can set back the progress of English learners who need more vocabulary and oral language strategies.
But passage of the bill would move California toward a consistent statewide approach to reading instruction. The legislation will also follow the lead of other states whose adoption of evidence-based strategies, known as the science of reading, have contributed to wide gains in proficiency on both state tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP in the early grades.
By contrast, on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the 41 percentage point gap in proficiency between economically and non-economically disadvantaged students in California was among the widest in the nation, and growing. Only 8% of Black and 23% of Hispanic fourth graders in California were proficient in reading, compared with 56% of white and 67% of Asian students.
Until now, California had avoided controversy by ceding control over reading instruction to local schools. The state did not collect information from districts on the reading strategies they used and the textbooks they purchased. Newly credentialed elementary grade teachers who were trained in the science of reading could be hired by districts using textbooks that conflicted with what they had just learned in credentialing programs.
“This legislation is essential, important progress, and it reflects agreement and robust consensus on ways to provide educators the evidence-based tools they need to support California’s diverse students,” said Rivas in a statement. “We must make sure every child, no matter their background, has the opportunity to become a confident and thriving reader.”
Also supporting the compromise is Californians Together, a nonprofit organization that advocates for English learners and biliteracy programs. It had opposed the original bill, Assembly Bill 1121, authored by Rubio. But in the statement that Rivas released, Hernandez said, “We appreciate Speaker Rivas’s leadership in bringing this legislation forward, and we remain committed to ensuring that any new literacy policy fully supports English learners.”
Rubio, who had expressed frustration with the opponents, thanked Rivas for his leadership and called AB 1454 “a significant step toward addressing very real concerns with our student outcomes while supplying teachers with the tools to ensure success in their roles.”
CTA has not yet decided its position on the new bill, said CTA President David Goldberg, while noting that it “is in a far better place thanks to the leadership of Speaker Rivas and the coalition of educators working on behalf of students to ensure a viable and responsible approach to a truly important issue.”
Jeffrey Freitas, the president of the smaller California Federation of Teachers, meanwhile, gave the new bill a full endorsement. “CFT members have been calling for more robust and improved literacy training and support to better meet the needs of our students,” he said. “We urge Governor Newsom and the Legislature to fully fund this important legislation, so that California teachers can immediately access the training.”
The main elements of Rubio’s bill, calling for a state-vetted choice of teacher training, along with materials aligned with instruction that the State Board of Education will approve, are in AB 1454. However, one key difference is that the teacher instruction, mandated under AB 1121, will be voluntary.
“It is no longer required, but we feel good about it,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice. “We believe districts will want to take advantage of it and get the professional development they need.”
Also, language was added that satisfied Californians Together. There is more emphasis on aligning training with the California English Language Arts/English Language Development framework, Hernandez said, and the bill will explicitly call out “linguistically and culturally responsive” strategies. It will also highlight dual language instruction. “That’s a step in the right direction,” Hernandez said.
The bill will require the California Department of Education to consult with a range of groups, presumably including the English learner community and advocates for dyslexics, who strongly support phonics-based instruction.
According to the Assembly analysis, the bill will require:
CDE to identify effective professional development in TK to grade 5 by Sept. 1, 2026 and for districts receiving funding for training to report to the state how many teachers received the training by 2029.
the State Board of Education to update its list of acceptable English language arts and English language development instructional materials;
the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to update school administrator standards to include training on how to support effective literacy instruction. Muratsuchi, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, had proposed this idea in his own literacy bill this year. He also participated in the negotiations.
Funding for the training and materials is unresolved, for now. Gov. Newsom proposed $250 million for literacy instruction in his initial 2025-26 budget. Money is expected to be tight, but Rivas, as speaker, will be at the table with Newsom for final budget talks in June.
Before Trump was elected, Elon Musk was being investigated by multiple federal agencies. After Trump’s election, Musk persuaded Trump to put him in charge of a cost-cutting operation called “Department of Government Efficiency,” which was tasked with cutting the budgets or shuttering multiple federal agencies.
Musk and his team of hackers were ruthless in closing agencies that did not like. They shut down USAID, which provided food and medicine to the world’s neediest families and children.They terminated scientific research on a large number of university campuses and in the NIH, which sponsors critical research into cures for deadly diseases. They defunded large and small.
But there is one kind of project they not defund: anything that pays federal funds to Elon Musk.
More than that, Musk had a very lucky break. His good friend Trump, to whom he gave nearly $300 million for the 2024 election, is unlikely to prosecute his pal Elon.
Elon Musk and his companies faced at least $2.37 billion in potential federal fines and penalties the day President Trump took office, according to a congressional report released Monday that highlights the possible conflicts of interest posed by the billionaire’s cost-cutting work in government.
The 43-page memo by the minority staff of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), is the most exhaustive attempt yet to detail Musk’s alleged conflicts as an advisor to Trump and chief promoter of his team called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Based on publicly available documents, media reports and the committee’s own calculations, the memo found that as of Jan. 20, Musk and his companies were “subject to at least 65 actual or potential actions by 11 different federal agencies” and that 40 of those created $2.37 billion in potential liabilities.
“Mr. Musk has taken a chainsaw to the federal government with no apparent regard for the law or for the people who depend on the programs and agencies he so blithely destroys,” the memo stated. “The through line connecting many of Mr. Musk’s decisions appears to be self-enrichment and avoiding what he perceives as obstacles to advancing his interests.”
The memo notes that Musk’s companies have received more than $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits going back more than 20 years. And it notes that SpaceX, as of Friday, had $10.1 billion in federal contracts.
“President Trump could not have chosen a person more prone to conflicts of interest,” states the memo, which calls on the president, executive departments and regulatory agencies to “take coordinated action to address Elon Musk’s threat to the integrity of federal governance.”
To no one’s surprise, the white Hohse press office indignantly insisted that Musk had no conflicts of interest.
The committee found that Tesla created most of the potential penalties for Musk — a cumulative $1.89 billion — due to investigations, lawsuits and other issues involving eight agencies.
The largest single liability was a potential $1.19-billion fine due to a reported criminal investigation opened by the Department of Justice into allegedly false or misleading statements made by Musk and the company about its Autopilot and Full-Self Driving Features since as early as 2016.
The Times previously reported the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is probing the Full-Self Driving technology after reports of four collisions in low-visibility conditions, including one in which a pedestrian was killed.
However, doubts have been raised about the Justice Department’s commitment to any prosecution. The memo notes that in February the department dismissed a lawsuit it filed against SpaceX for allegedly discouraging asylum seekers and refugees from applying for jobs or hiring them because of their citizenship status. It calculated the lawsuit could have exposed SpaceX to $46.1 million in liabilities.
The second single largest liability of $462 million facing Musk also involved Tesla. It arose out of a 2023 lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for the company’s alleged toleration of widespread racial harassment of Black employees at its Fremont, Calif., factory. Tesla has denied the allegations. In January, Trump fired two Democratic commissioners and the agency’s general counsel.
How likely is it that any of these charges will go to trial?
With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured are Kanette Yatsattie , 8 , left, and his classmate Jeremy Candelaria, 10, hanging out by a board depicting the race for best attendance at the school on October.
Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
As chronic absences have steadily decreased in California schools, the rate among Native American students remains consistently higher.
Persistent high chronic absence rates have resulted in schools increasing their focus on addressing students’ basic needs, emphasizing mental health support, and boosting outreach efforts to reconnect with students amid the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, which closed California public schools beginning March 2020 and didn’t reopen until spring 2021.
Many Native American youth face challenges similar to other marginalized communities — such as poverty, systemic discrimination and poor health — but often with the added barrier of historical mistrust in state school systems due to the lingering impacts of removing Native American youth from their communities and confining them to federal boarding schools.
“With quite a few of our Native American learners, we’ve recognized that there has been a lot of trauma in the family,” said Heather Golly, superintendent of Bonsall Unified in San Diego County. “It affects everyone in the family when there is trauma.”
Chronic absence is defined as missing 10% or more of students’ expected attendance, whether for excused or unexcused reasons. For students on a typical 180-day school calendar, this totals to about one month of missed school in a given year. High chronic absentee rates concern educators and researchers alike as they reflect a significant loss of instructional time.
Chronic absenteeism among Native American students during the 2023-24 school year was much higher, at 33%, than the statewide rate of 20.4%, according to data from the California Department of Education (CDE). The statewide chronic absenteeism rate has been declining for Native American students since 2021-22, when numbers peaked at 43.6%.
The absentee rate disparity did not start with the Covid pandemic: The pre-pandemic rate of chronic absences was 21.8% for Native American students and 12.1% for all students.
The state Education Department recently published its annual School Dashboard, which shows lower rates for chronic absenteeism statewide because it includes only grades K-8. The state education data used throughout this story includes all grades, from TK to 12.
Every Native American student is a direct descendant or relative of someone who attended federal boarding schools from the mid 1800s until the mid 20th century, according to Ashley Rojas, policy director for Indigenous Justice. Native American students forced to attend boarding schools had their language, culture and family stripped from them, and Rojas sees echoes of that in contemporary American public schools.
Rojas said that every year, she hears from students who are taught the history of California statehood or missions in a way that erases Native American perspectives. She noted there are still many schools with mascots based on stereotypes of Native American people. Even though it is against California law, Native American students tell Rojas about being barred by their school administration from representing their heritage and spirituality during graduation.
“Every year, we deal with districts trying to remove this right from our young people, trying to tell them, ‘You can’t wear your feathers, you can’t wear your beads. You must fit into our image of a graduate,’” Rojas said. “Given the historical and ongoing traumatization of our students and communities by these systems, we just can’t stand for that.”
About 26,000 or about 0.4% of the state’s nearly 6 million students enrolled in public K-12 schools, including charter and alternative schools, are Native American. This number is likely an undercount because Native Americans are much more likely than any other group to identify themselves as belonging to two or more races, according to the Brookings Institute. They may be counted alongside other multiracial students with different backgrounds.
State education law lists several reasons for excusing students, but most excused absences, school officials say, are related to illness and mental health.
Native American students in California missed an average of 18.5 days of school in 2023-24 — more than any other race or ethnicity. Unlike the average California student, their absences were more likely to be unexcused than excused, according to the CDE, an issue pervasive across the state as noted in a recent PACE report.
Unexcused absences often mean students lacked documentation such as a note from a doctor or they provided no reason for their absence, or the reason they provided does not qualify as an excusable absence. A student can be labeled truant after more than three unexcused absences in one school year.
While all absences can hamper students in their academic and personal development given the loss of instructional time, only truancy involves the potential for punitive measures for parents, such as fines and jail time.
Colonization and repression has meant that many surviving Native American students are disconnected from their heritage and communities, said Rojas. But those who are still engaged with their communities will partake in spiritual ceremonies that include communal dancing, praying and time with elders. These holidays aren’t acknowledged by California school calendars, so students can rack up unexcused absences, putting them at risk of being considered criminally truant.
“When your school already makes you feel like you don’t belong, and then they’re going to punish you for going to the only places that you do belong, it’s really going to be difficult to convince a young person that it’s important to be there,” Rojas said.
Absences reflect remnants of traumatic history
Chronic absences are often the result of systemic challenges, such as inconsistent transportation, food instability, violence in the home, homelessness, undiagnosed disabilities and more. Higher rates of suspensions are also a factor. Out-of-school suspensions for Native American students accounted for 1.5% of absences compared with the state average of 0.9%.
Some of the highest chronic absence rates for Native American students in the state are along the state’s Northern coast. In Humboldt County, a larger proportion of students are Native American — 8.7% compared to 0.4% statewide — and 55.4% of them were chronically absent last year, compared with 27.3% countywide.
“Failing Grade: The Status of Native American Education in Humboldt County,” a report published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Northern California and the Northern California Indian Development Council, examined the county’s “egregious” disparities in chronic absenteeism, as well as academic performance and discipline, noting that the troubled and violent history of federal boarding schools has left a lasting imprint on Native American communities in Humboldt.
The boarding schools, operated nationwide for about 150 years up until at least 1969, had a practice of separating Native American children from their families, cutting them off from their communities and cultures.
Some of the documented forms of abuse include solitary confinement, withholding of food, prohibiting Indigenous languages and cultural practices, and more. A report from the U.S. Department of the Interior in July found that nationwide, at least 973 Native American students died while at boarding schools, though the number is considered an undercount.
Federal boarding schools were “specifically designed to erase Native American people and Native American culture,” said Colby Smart, deputy superintendent of the Humboldt County Office of Education. “That doesn’t go away in one year, and it doesn’t go away in one generation.”
Native American communities today are still facing serious problems — including the legacy of colonization — that can contribute to chronic absentee rates among students. In Humboldt County, 75% of Native American students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, according to the California Department of Education. Smart also pointed to high suicide rates, substance abuse, health problems and poverty in local Native American communities.
Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified is located in Hoopa, a small town that is the site of the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s federal reservation and the former home to one of a dozen federal boarding schools in California.
The district has 774 Native American students, which is not just the majority of the district but more Native American students in a district than any other in the state. During the 2023-24 school year, 70% of these students were chronically absent, and Native American students missed an average of 36 days.
Notably, the most recent data shows that the opposite occurred in Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified, where it increased by 7 percentage points between 2023-24 and the year prior.
Partnerships with tribes offer solutions
High chronic absentee rates do not signal that Native American communities don’t value school or education, according to Rojas with Indigenous Justice.
“Indigenous people are super pro-education, but they just want to be sure that what is being learned is not going to cause further harm,” Rojas said.
A key factor in ensuring Native American students feel welcome and engaged at school is working in partnership with local Native American communities. There are large Native American communities in the Central Valley and Del Norte where students don’t have access to the same resources as Native American students in Humboldt County, where the Yurok Tribe is more politically engaged.
The Humboldt County Office of Education aims to help local districts tackle high chronic absentee rates through “pull” factors that engage parents and students, and make them feel welcome, even excited to attend school. For instance, local high schools offer the Indigenous language Yurok as a class that puts students on track for college, while connecting them with their heritage.
“If students feel like they belong, not only do kids go to school more, but their academic outcomes improve,” Smart said.
Culturally relevant curriculum can be an important way to engage Native American students, Smart said. The Humboldt County Office of Education is partnering with the San Diego County Office of Education as well as over 100 California tribes, Native American organizations and scholars to develop a state curriculum model for Native American studies. This curriculum is expected to be released next September.
In this curriculum, kindergartners might count acorns, a dietary staple, while learning the Yurok language; a middle school student can learn about traditional foods of Native Californians, while a high school student may study federal boarding schools.
In northern San Diego County, Bonsall Unified and the Pala Band of Mission Indians entered a partnership last year to better support Native American students. The agreement allows the district to share attendance information with key tribal leaders and hold joint meetings to discuss potential support for students and their families, all to increase school attendance.
If a student is missing school due to inconsistent transportation, the tribe might offer to sponsor the students’ bus fee. There is a new position in the works, a Pala attendance support specialist, whose job will include making home visits to chronically absent students and offering solutions based on each student’s needs.
During 2023-24, Bonsall Unified improved its chronic absence rates among Native American youth across all grades to 41% from a high of 50.9% in 2021-22.
The improvements have not only come from the agreement, which was spearheaded by district trustee Eric Ortega and Chairman Robert H. Smith of the Pala Band of Mission Indians, but from the groundwork that was laid over the course of several years.
About eight years ago, Bonsall Unified schools began hosting Pala Valley Day, an annual event for students to learn about local Native American history, with some of the presentations being made by Native American students.
Efforts since then have continued to foster a sense of belonging among Native American students. Middle and high school students recently took a field trip to visit the American Indian Studies department at Cal State San Marcos, and there is a mural in the works that will feature Native American students.
“When they belong — when they feel like they belong — they’re more in tune with being happy to be there and wanting to be there,” said Ortega about the district’s Native American students.
Many Native American students have faced challenges like inconsistent transportation, lack of tutoring and the need for counseling, which most other students statewide have also experienced in recent years.
In increasing their focus on collaboration with the Pala Band of Mission Indians, Golly and her staff have also found that students and their families are much more receptive to accepting support when offered by their tribal community.
As chronic absences steadily decrease, Golly attributes much of the success of those partnerships to the support from tribal leaders such as Chair Smith, who she said is “a wonderful partner, and he believes strongly in the power of education.”
The district also established a Native Learner Advisory Committee that schedules its meetings on the Pala reservation. They coordinated with the Pala learning center and with the tribal council to ensure meetings were scheduled at a time when more people can attend.
Golly, district superintendent, said it has been important for the district to show it is listening to requests from their Native American families, as well as returning to committee meetings “with something actionable” in response to feedback.
More recently, at an all-staff meeting, a panel of five Native American students presented to the entire certificated staff, sharing what they want their teachers to know about their culture, when they feel like they belong, and when they feel they don’t belong.
As Ortega put it, building trust is ongoing work that requires time and collaboration at multiple levels, from school leaders to tribal leaders to parents.
“We are right on the precipice of what we’re doing, and so anything can make it go wrong. It’s not perfect, but we want this to be our culture, our way of life,” he said about the partnership. “The more and more we do it, the more positive results we have, the better we’re going to be.”
EdSource data journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed to this report.
Students walk to class during passing periods at Pacifica High School, which is part of the Oxnard Union High School District.
Credit: J. Marie / EdSource
Last year, a Washington Post investigation identified more than 200 school police officers across the country “who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022.”
There are at least two ongoing court cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct against former school resource officers in California.
James Louis, who worked as a resource officer at Rodriguez High School in Solano County, was arrested on March 8, 2024, after parents told police that he had texted sexual images and messages to two students.
Solano County prosecutors charged Louis with “sending, distributing, or exhibiting harmful or obscene material to a minor,” court records show. Louis is free on bail. His attorney declined to comment. The Fairfield Police Department, which had employed Louis and assigned him to the high school, would not say whether he resigned or was fired after his arrest.
In Orange County, former deputy sheriff and resource officer Justin Raymond Ramirez pleaded guilty in 2023 to misdemeanor charges that he showed students at Trabuco Hills High School a video of a couple having sex that ended with a woman’s violent death. One of the students and her family are now suing Ramirez, the county, and the county sheriff for extreme emotional distress.
The state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission stripped Ramirez’s policing certification last year, a move that permanently bans him from working as a law enforcement officer in California.
After Ramirez’s arrest, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer issued a statement saying, “School resource officers are in our children’s schools to ensure a safe learning environment and help build trust between law enforcement and our community. Ramirez had no business being in a position of trust around children, and he abused that position of trust in a truly disgusting way.”
The county and Sheriff Dan Barnes are also defendants in the lawsuit. Neither responded to requests for comment, and attempts to reach Ramirez were unsuccessful. Court records show he does not have an attorney for the civil case.
In December, after the Washington Post published its investigation, the U.S. Justice Department revised its recommendations for school resource officer programs and called for schools and law enforcement agencies to “develop clear policies and procedures about interpersonal contacts” between resource officers and students, including about touching, social media contacts, emails, cards and after-school interactions.
The Justice Department also recommends that “officers should take extra precautions to avoid any appearance of impropriety.”
A spokesperson for the National Association of School Resource Officers, which provides training for law enforcement, said that it is updating its recommendations to reflect the Justice Department’s recommendations.
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